It turns out the Mecron Rules work great as a human. Playing human is like playing a different game compared to Tarks or Hivers. Their research is through the roof..... I did the Liir xeno tree in about 7 turns.

I annexed a human faction and found they were max pop on all worlds... very bad management skills.

What I love about sots is it's complex enough that I can do more nuanced 4X strategies.... I'm doing the "Imperial strategy" where I took over the galactic center before everyone else got there and gin up trade and xenotech etc.... Making shitloads of money but weak military, dealing with vassal or barbarian mini empires around the galactic rim.... Its much more chill than vicious warlordism tbh...

I don't know that attributing common sense paying attention to your economy to something called "Mecron rules" or calling a fairly standard-sounding REX an "imperial strategy" really makes sense, but I guess it's your mental framework for understanding the game. Just don't expect others to necessarily know what you are talking about.

Human research speed is pretty average, on a dollar-for-dollar basis... it's more that humans can often grow their economy relatively quick through fast scouting and speedy REX, so tend to get more disposable income faster than other races, getting them started on their snowball sooner and facilitating eventual spending of more money on research.

Max pop on all worlds could make sense... depends on the map and what you are doing with that pop. Some folks like to overpopulate worlds to the max for tax revenue to build a bigger snowball faster, assuming they can win before loss of resources starts to become a big problem. If you are playing on normal or accelerated economic settings this can pay off handsomely; if you can effectively win by turn 100-150 then the lost resources will never be an issue. If you are expecting the game to take longer it can be a good idea to be a bit more judicious than that, but I find in most games I do want to overpopulate to some degree at some point, especially after I have freighters and want some extra trade routes to fill.

As far as diplomacy goes, well all AI empires want to expand and tend to have friction with their immediate neighbors, and the Tarka are no exception. They have no natural allies of their own race in your game, so it's not too surprising they don't have any friends. The most likely way for a Tarka AI to make friends is to battle alongside another empire against a shared enemy empire.

The Tarks' problem is being stuck in the backend of a galactic arm. The AI isn't so good in that restrictive environment «que sera sera». They shouldn't be more diplomatic, they should be more aggressive. It take big ass combat fleets to "get her done" not some puny raiding adventures...

I'm starting to think you're right about the population thing. Maybe I've been too uptight this whole time!!

REX is standard 4X slang for Rapid EXpansion. It’s the phase at the beginning of the game where you are trying to explore and grab as much territory as possible to boom your economy, before you start seriously thinking about attacking your neighbors.

As far as being stuck in a corner of the map goes... crippled expansion prospects will hurt anyone, let alone an AI empire. So yeah, you’d be right not to expect the AI to know how to fight it’s way out of that kind of a hole.

I don't think it's weird at all to have an acronym for a commonly used term, or to have a common name for something that happens all the time. Don't terms and acronyms get coined for just these reasons in nearly every human endeavour?

As far as whether it's strategy or whether it's something unavoidable... well I suppose that depends on just how much emphasis you choose to put into expansion (as opposed to other possible priorities.) In some strategy genres, like RTS, it can be viable to immediately rush to attack, e.g. with a Zergling rush in Starcraft. But most 4X games don't tend to lend themselves to rush strategies. And while some 4Xs do tend to encourage a focus on technological over economic advancement, SotS isn't one of them. Regardless, executing and defending a REX opening against early threats does require some strategic decision-making and prioritization about how best to do that.